Hearing Maggie rattle off the names of the foreign people, buildings, towns, and counties made me dizzy. Or maybe it was the wine. I’d forgotten to eat dinner again. “Starting tomorrow,” I vowed, “I’ll take better care of myself. I’ll start the day with herbal tea and eat balanced meals. I’ll start sending out resumés and get a lucrative day job somewhere where they’ll treat me with respect.”
I heard my phone ping. I glanced at it and struggled to focus. It was an e-ticket confirmation from Aer Lingus.
“Uh, Maggie. When is my flight?” I held the phone back from my face, trying to read the tiny, blurry words.
“Tomorrow morning.” She slammed her laptop shut. “The car service is coming at 4:30, so we’d better start packing. You’re welcome.”
The future is not set, there is no fate but what we make for ourselves.
I was counting the seconds until the plane hit a comfortable cruising altitude. My hands shook. I had barely gotten three hours of sleep and I was pretty sure I was still drunk. I needed a coffee just to keep me upright. Sitting in the window seat almost at the back of the plane, I held hope that the middle seat in my row of three would stay empty. Just as the crew swung the cabin door closed, a cheerful red-faced guy pushed in, banging every person on the left-hand aisle in the head with his briefcase, apologizing to each. Of course, he wedged in next to me, where his hammy forearm was now hogging the armrest. I was freezing, but I didn’t dare push the call button for a blanket lest I draw attention to myself and give him a reason to speak to me.
What had Maggie been thinking, sending me to the ends of the earth to chase down a crabby chef who wanted no part of me? As I walked through the temporary hallway-on-wheels, I told myself to simply turn around and go home. I didn’t have the guts to defy Maggie, though. So here I sat, trapped next to Sunny McSausagefingers, being forced to inhale his fresh and grassy aftershave.
Contorting my body in the tiny space, I fished between my legs to root around for my (Brenda’s) pashmina. I felt a hard, rectangular something wrapped in crinkly paper. I wedged it out of my bag and into my lap. It was a present, with a card on the front.
Dear Shay — I was saving this for your birthday, but I want you to have it now to keep you company on this trip. I know you must be scared, but I have a feeling you’re going to get everything you ever wanted. Love, Mags. P.S. If you have the chance to leap into bed with a sexy aul Irishman (anyone but my cousin Des!) do it. What happens in Ireland, stays in Ireland.
What did Maggie know about being scared? She was a luck magnet and her future was being paved for her in gold, brick by brick. I knew Maggie loved me and that her goal was to reach down and pull me up with her. I knew how lucky I was to have her pushing me. And yet… and yet… why everyone else and not me? My guilt at thinking this about my best friend made my muscles tight. Was there any feeling worse than covetousness? I had to talk myself down off a ledge. As they say, “compare and despair.” I reminded myself that Maggie wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth, and shifted my focus to the positive. After all, she’d set the wheels in motion to help me fix my life and she’d packed me a gift to boot.
I slid my present out of the wrapping paper. It was a beautiful journal, covered in nubby, sage green, handmade paper with yellow dried flowers pressed into it. It looked like a spring field. It was almost too pretty to write in. There was even a pen to go with it — just the kind I liked, with a clicker on top, a clip for attaching, and a nice heavy weight. It was a retro sunny yellow color. The words Kate’s Paperie appeared in demure typeface on the inside of the back cover of my new journal Maggie knew that was one of my favorite stores in all New York. I turned the book over in my hands. I admired it. Maggie intended to make me happy with this gift, pure and simple. I noticed a little sheet sticking out. It read,
This present is not for saving, it’s for using. Signed, Margaret Doyle, Queen of Everything.
I lay my head back against the seat, smiling about my new gift. Packing a neck pillow would have been a good idea. I was tired, but so tense at the same time. My shoulders were in knots. “I’ll just close my eyes for a minute, just until the beverage cart come by with some coffee,” I thought. I tried to rest, but my mind wouldn’t quiet.
Tracing my fingers lightly over the relief of the flowers on my new journal, I remembered the daffodils that pushed up at my grandparent’s house upstate, sometimes before it was really even warm outside. My mom grew up in that house, situated on the east bank of the Hudson River. I toured colleges up that way: Vassar, Bard, Concordia. Hank pushed for Columbia or NYU so I wouldn’t have to leave the city.
“New York is the capital of the world,” he told me. “It’s the place to grab life by the balls.” At the time, the idea of grabbing anyone or anything by the balls seemed out of my wheelhouse. I needed to proceed at a slower pace; to test the waters. We compromised on Sarah Lawrence. “Good for writers; close to urban life,” so Hank said. The scholarly and artistic atmosphere suited me. That, and the culture of accepting hairy legs and a wardrobe of sweat suits. My seminars required prep time. I didn’t have the time or energy to doll up for classes.
When I was a little kid, mom and I had spent summers with my grandparents in Rhinebeck. I could almost smell the tomatoes she grew; she loved them so much, sometimes we’d eat them straight from the vine, still warm from the sun. And Grandma had her wonderful black and white Border Collie, Pip. I was so sad when he had died. Poor old Pip. When his time came, he was so weak Grandma fed him baby formula from a dropper to keep his mouth moist. His breathing became more and more rattled with each hour. That last night, we curled up next to his fuzzy donut bed by the fireplace and laid our hands on him as his body shook in one last violent spasm before he lay quiet. She and I spooned together and cried. We didn’t bury his body till the next morning.
I pushed away my thoughts and lay my head back, trying to blank my mind.
“Focus on one breath in, one breath out, breathing in a circle,” the yoga teacher from the one class I’d ever taken tried to teach me. I didn’t want to think about Pip, or Grandma, or how scared I was to be going halfway around the world alone. I pictured the tension in my shoulders liquefying, draining away. My body craved sleep. Breathing in, breathing out. The buzz of the aircraft and the vibration of the seat lulled me. The voices of the other travelers, popping of the soda cans, the thump of tray tables all faded away.
I emerged from the nothingness walking the hallway of Hank’s Upper West Side apartment, or at least it seemed like Hank’s place. Vines adorned the ceilings. They crawled with hissing cockroaches and tiny birds that shrieked occasional high-pitched complaints. I didn’t want to walk underneath these creatures.
It was very cold and dimly lit. I was only in my nightgown, wrapped in a red duvet, but when the elevator door opened, I got on anyway. Lizbeth and Jordan Silver were on, too. I stayed still so they wouldn’t see me. On the ground floor, I hugged Dmitry and told him I’d miss him, and that he’d been like a father to me. He tried to hide the cigarette in his hand. The smoke choked me but I said, “No, please smoke. You have every right to make yourself happy.” And I meant it with all my heart. He waved, smiling, as I walked out the door. Instead of exiting onto West End Avenue, I walked onto Grandma’s lawn.
The grass was cool on my feet, but the sun was warm on my face and shoulders, so I threw off my duvet. Pip was barking, and frisking; he beckoned me to follow. Seeing him made me so happy, it felt like my heart was filled with helium. I screamed, “Good boy! Good boy!” But it only came out as a wheeze. I chased after him, and he led me to a big double bed covered in soft pillows and pastel quilts. Mom was tucked in and she stretched her arms out to me. I climbed in and snuggled into a hug. Pip sprung aboard, turned around several times,